Joyful Rebellion: A Conversation With Frizz Kid
I think the more I find myself feeling secure in my life, secure in my friendships, in myself, in the work that I do, the more secure that I feel in actually being the version of myself that I've always wanted to be.
When speaking about survival, feminist writer, professor, and activist Audre Lorde stated that survival should be more than just existing. Individual and collective survival should be marked by joy, mobility, and effectiveness. She concludes the thought by proclaiming “if we do what we need to be doing, then we will leave something that continues beyond ourselves, and that is survival.”
2023 was a heavy year, with an increase in the number of climate events, escalating war, and politicians rolling out new anti-LGBTQ legislation to foment a rise in hate crimes. Sometimes it can feel as if existence is hard enough. However, there are artists who show us how to face the darkness with joy to help give our survival meaning.
Tackling subject matter like racism, climate change, body politics, and Islamophobia with a fearless sense of humour, the work of visual artist, poet, and author Hana Shafi aka Frizz Kid shows us that celebration is a necessary element of survival. With the release of her latest book “People You Know, Places You’ve Been,” I sat down with Hana to discuss how she cultivates a resistance to despair in her work, growing and developing in real-time online as an artist in the social media age, the importance of art during times of civil unrest, and celebrating the antiheroes we encounter in everyday life.
Noyz: Recently on social media, you shared that it had been 10 years since you started posting your artwork online and being very public with it. The last decade or so, I feel is a really unique time to be an artist publicly because with tools like social media, we get to see artists grow, experiment, develop, make mistakes, and find their way in real time. How has that process been for you as far as being very transparent and public with your process?
Hana: It's interesting because I feel like social media when I started really posting my art online is very different from social media now for a multitude of reasons. Even TikTok didn't exist then, for example. The other thing is the algorithm and what's prioritized and pushed has really significantly changed. Back when I was posting, it was still like a chronological timeline. There were no reels or anything like that. I actually think for artists who are starting now, it's harder for them. Not that it was easy back then, but I do think that social media feels a lot more demanding than it ever has because there's this expectation to be constantly posting.
It's been interesting trying to navigate social media as an artist because when you're putting things on social media, that is regarded as content and content creation, but most artists I know, including myself, don't really like the perception of their art as simply content. Because anything can be content. If I post a selfie on my art Instagram, that's great, and I'm happy sharing for people to say nice things, but it's a lot different than if I put something on social media that I have worked on for hours that I have come up with a concept for. You're putting your heart and soul on there, and that's not always necessarily recognized or it gets buried and doesn't get the likes or whatever. It's hard being online as an artist, and especially growing as an artist because my art style has changed a lot over the last 10 years, as it should. You always have to be growing and being fluid as an artist, but that can also mean that you feel a pressure sometimes to stay consistent and keep posting things that are consistent with your brand, but that doesn't feel authentic to me as an artist because my whole goal as an artist is to be in motion and evolving, and changing, and experimenting with things. It's weird. Social media, there's a huge amount of benefit, but there are disadvantages too.
Noyz: One quote that you had recently that really stuck out for me was how “social media rewards brand consistency over authenticity and growth.” How do you strike that balance between what the algorithm will pick up or what your audience is coming to expect from you versus creating something that is more meaningful for you to do?
Hana: I try to set social media boundaries and limits with myself, and remind myself to not feel pressured to post a bunch of new stuff multiple times a week. I realistically cannot make art that quickly. I have done that in the past and it's led me to be really, really burnt out and uninspired as an artist. What I do is I set boundaries of only wanting to post a couple of times a week. Hopefully I'll get a new piece of art out this week, but if not, I'll let myself post something older or post a selfie, or post something in the middle. I don't want to just disappear from social media and not post for weeks at a time.
I want to still be engaging with the people who follow me and who care about seeing my art, but I also want to not put that pressure on myself to just keep churning things out and have everything be a masterpiece, and have everything be perfect, because that's really unrealistic. I don't have that many good ideas that I could produce that many good things so quickly.
That's how I strike a balance. You have to put your health and happiness first before you start thinking about how popular you'll be online, because if you're burnt out, it doesn't matter how many people online are liking your things. You're burnt out. You can't do anything anymore.
Noyz: Around the topic of art, self-care, and self-preservation, in an older interview when you were just out of school for journalism, you talked about wanting to keep a little bit of distance between the hat you wear as a journalist versus your role as an artist, where the art was more for fun and you didn't want the two worlds to interact much. Now that art has become a bigger part of your life, what is that thing that you turn to to take a break from the work side of art?
Hana: Things are definitely different for me now in that I no longer do journalism and haven't pursued it or been really involved in it in many years now. I really shifted my whole career and my whole life to be more so catered towards art. I've worked a bunch of different random day jobs to make ends meet. I’ve worked retail for five, six years. One thing that I do to ensure that there's a line between art as a career and art as doing something for pleasure is doing little things like having personal art projects for myself. Coming up with little artistic goals or something I really want to create. Or having a craft night with my friends where we get together and we try a medium that we've never done before. Hamza and I met up a few times and we were doing paint pouring because we didn't know how to do it, and we explored it together. Finding ways to also explore and enjoy art in a way that is curious and excited, and more embracing how you connect with art as a child than how you connect with it as an adult. Being able to have that separated time is really helpful because when I'm making those, it's okay if it turns out not so good.
Maybe it's a new medium, maybe it doesn't turn out like much, but it was a place for me to enjoy it and have fun. Whereas if I'm making something that's for a particular purpose on Instagram or a commission for a company or whatever, I can't just experiment and have fun there, it can't just be random stuff I mashed together.
That being said, I feel like even in work stuff, I'm still able to have a lot of fun, which is one of the benefits of just getting to be an artist. One of the commissions that I've been doing lately, I did a few posters for the Revue Cinema in Toronto. I love making those. It doesn't feel like work. It's really fun because I like movies and it's just like a fun way to connect with that. There are ways to separate it and then sometimes even the work stuff is so great that I don't need to.
Noyz: I think it speaks to having something that is just for you, that doesn't have to be for public consumption.
Hana: 100%, because I think we've also been socialized into complying with this need to monetize everything and make everything available for public consumption, and make everything have a work-like purpose instead of just doing things for joy and just to try new things. Because we're not encouraged to really do that. We're encouraged to make everything productive and purposeful. It's hard too because we're living in late-stage capitalism and people are trying to do multiple side hustles and side jobs just to make ends meet. That can unfortunately really take the joy out of creating.
Noyz: One thing I noticed about your pieces, and I really appreciate about your pieces, is that you talk about a lot of heavy topics but there is a levity and humour and joy to it. How do you find that joy and the humour while not making light of the subjects themselves?
Hana: I think we have to talk about the heavy things and there are things that are important to fight for and to care about, and to use your voice about. There are things that we should get angry over and that we should get sad about. The hard thing with that is that when you're scrolling through social media or you're just on your phone, you're seeing the heavy stuff always, always, always, and it starts to feel incredibly disheartening because it feels like there's so many heavy things and you don't have any control over it. We slip into this feeling of defeat, this feeling of apathy, this feeling of exhaustion because we don't know how to cope with all of those difficult things.
That's the reason why I do try to incorporate some kind of joy and humour into the work because the way that we resist the despair and the exhaustion that the world is heaving onto us in so many ways is by finding ways to laugh at it and finding reasons to be hopeful. You need that hope, you need that laughter, you need that joy, or you have no fight left in you. You're not going to want to make those big changes if you don't have that joy. If I'm having a really bad time, a bad day, bad week, bad month, whatever, and I go with my friends, we'll laugh about it.
We'll be laughing about really real shit we're going through and it'll seem like dark humour. I feel so energized after having that because there's only so much wallowing I can do by myself. You have to find a way to access joy. We deserve narratives of joy and art that depicts joy. Because some of us are so beaten down and we deserve that joy. We've been told that your life's purpose is to have a fancy title and make money, but your life's purpose is to be happy. We deserve to find joy somewhere while also actively engaging with the issues that matter and being openly critical of power systems that hurt us and that hurt others.
Noyz: That ties into a question I had. I wanted to save it for later but I think it makes sense to bring it in here. We're seeing quite a bit, not even just within North America but around the world, how queer communities are being attacked through legislation, and through hate crimes on the streets as well. It seems the climate has really gotten intense over the last few years. What role do you feel art has in a climate like this where queer communities are under attack?
Hana: I think it's the art that we engage in that can sometimes show us the futures that we want. What I try to do with my art is depict these worlds, these characters, these colourful narratives of queer and trans people who are exceptionally happy and flourishing, and they're 100% themselves. They're comfortable in their own skin. They're safe, they're celebrated, they're loved. I have a lot of art with different portraits of people and characters. I put a lot of thought into the fun outfits and the makeup, and everything like that because self-expression is something that is being so policed.
People who express themselves in a way that is considered queer-coded or trans-coded, or gender fluid in any way have been made to feel increasingly unsafe. Even more so for queer and trans Black and Indigenous people, and people of colour. Especially for visibly trans people, like trans women who face alarming rates of violence against them. Art is how we resist, it's how we fight back. It's how we show our inner world and our inner beauty and our identity proudly and beautifully so that people can witness that, and so that queer and trans youth can see that and envision that future for themselves.
Because we have to keep dreaming of that future where it's not so dangerous or so controversial to identify across the 2SLGTBQ+ spectrum. It's considered this controversial debated thing. To me, identities are not up to debate. That's who a person is and it's a fundamental part of them. It's not up for debate. It's not a controversial subject. It's not an opinion. It's a person. Art having historically been used as a form of protest is so important in keeping our community strong and hopeful and safe.
Noyz: You've touched on the importance of community in your practice and in your life. One thing you wrote online recently, you said there's no such thing as a self-made person. Can you speak to the importance of community in your arts journey? Because the creation of art can be pretty solitary and a lonely task at times.
Hana: I feel like where I am today as an artist is because of the support system and the community around me. Yes, there's no self-made person. All of us have help along the way, inspiration along the way, the influence and support, and cheers of others along the way that helps form us. It's like when people say it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to do anything, to accomplish anything. While I'm not saying that to detract from myself, because obviously there's a lot that I did do, this is my art, these are my forms of expression and I've worked very hard for it.
If it wasn't for, first of all, other people even taking notice of my art and seeing some kind of potential in me, I would not be where I am now. Because there were people in my life who saw what I was doing and they mentored me because maybe they were at a more established stage in their career. They supported me. They gave me tips on how to be better because I was still learning and struggling with my technique. That can present itself in any way. Even with some of my writing, I've asked people, ‘can I send this to you? Can you edit this for me? I don't know if it sounds good.’
A friend will do that for me. Or I'll message one of my friends and go, ‘I'm making this art piece. I can't decide whether I want to use blue here or purple here.’ They'll give me their feedback. Even in the smallest forms, there's always someone who has inspired something or aided me in some way. Whether it was the really big things, like the people who gave me literal opportunities for income, or the small things, which is just friends giving you their suggestions or their recommendations, all of that comes together to form the creation of any kind of art.
Noyz: Utilizing the trust and the friendships that already exist, and bringing those people into your world as an artist because sometimes it helps to have an outsider perspective.
Hana: For sure. When you're an artist, you're inevitably inspired by all the artists that you like and consume. It's like people say there's no such thing as an original thought because we're all inspired by each other. In my work, there's a lot of influence of '60s and '70s psychedelic art and fashion, and all of that. It's not like I made those things up magically. It's all been inspired from everything that's come before me. I think it's really important for people to acknowledge that, to acknowledge the inspiration of the people around them and the people who came before them and made all of this possible for us to do in the present moment.
Noyz: One of your quotes related to your book, It Begins with the Body, you talked about wanting the art to feel uncomfortable for the person experiencing it. When you're creating uncomfortable pieces, are you able to create from the discomfort or does it come more so from hindsight once you've had a chance to process it and live through it?
Hana: It's interesting because with that book in particular, with It Begins with the Body, it was such a goal of mine to create these illustrations that were strange and weird, and ugly, and uncomfortable to look at because I felt like the parts of myself that everybody sees might be all the really lovely parts that I would like to put forward, but the parts of most people that are just existing day to day are the average, sometimes unattractive parts. You wake up in the morning, you go to the bathroom, we get sick, we barf, we cry, we get mad at people, we get pimples in weird spots.
People are imperfect and gross, and that's part of being human. I think a lot of people have forgotten that - especially because of social media, because everybody looks so damn good on there - we forget that we're all just a bag of bones in a meat suit. We're all just trying to get by in this world. Sometimes I have to take the ugly uncomfortable parts of myself and depict it. That can be hard sometimes, because obviously you want to put that version of you forward that other people are going to like.
When I've had to depict the ugly things, I wonder like, oh, maybe people won't like me if I draw something like this. Maybe they’ll think I'm gross. Maybe they’ll think I'm weird. I do have to remind myself that sometimes you have to confront a little bit of what you fear or what you dislike about yourself in your work. I think we all have to do that just as people, regardless of whether you're creating any kind of art. We can't avoid those parts of ourselves. It's important that we can share those parts of ourselves with people, with our friends or family, or people we trust, and still feel loved and valued regardless of it.
Noyz: For sure. I’ve found that if I was putting out a song and I'm sharing something very personal, there's always that thought at the back of my head like, ‘should I keep this in there? How is this going to be received?’ But oftentimes it's those uglier parts that are what people tend to resonate with more.
Hana: Yes. People relate to the ugly stuff. People relate to the things that are mundane or gross, or weird, or embarrassing because that's how we experience our life, in all those different shades of things. There's parts of our lives that are beautiful and amazing, and Instagram-worthy. A lot of it is just regular or it's awkward, or it's weird in some way. That's what really connects people. We usually connect more and bond more over the ugly embarrassing things than the fancy beautiful things, I think.
Noyz: One other thing that you do is facilitate poetry workshops. With the workshops and helping others tap into their own voice and sense of expression, is there anything about that process that has taught you something about your own practice?
Hana: Oh, absolutely. When I've done workshops with youth especially, I feel really inspired because they're so honest and brave and bold about what they share. It's really special and inspiring to me, especially when I'm working with queer and trans youth, because when I was that age, we didn't know how to express those ideas and identities. Words like gender fluid, for example, is not a word that I knew growing up as a kid.
I feel sad about that. I wish that those things were talked about because I think I would've maybe been more confident in my self-expression from a younger age if that had been around. When I am doing workshops, especially with young people, especially with queer and trans youth, it's very inspiring to see young people have the courage to be themselves, to express themselves in ways that are funny and interesting, and inspiring, and eloquent.
I've heard some people do a poetry exercise that I have, and in 15 minutes they've written something that's so touching or something that's so clever, or they've come up with an idea and I go, ‘oh my gosh, you should write that as a story, that's so cool.’ You see people's inherent capacity to create, and to make art, because every person has that in them. It also pushes me to want to challenge myself, and find ways in which I can be braver and bolder with my own work.
Noyz: For your upcoming book, People You Know, Places You've Been, you've talked about how it celebrates the antiheroes of the world. Who are some of the antiheroes that have made an impact on your art and in your life?
Hana: Oh, wow. There's definitely going to be a lot of them in the book. Some of them will be mentioned there. I think an antihero is someone who overcomes adversity and does heroic, important, brave things but doesn't have the conventional attributes of a hero. That defines a lot of us really. Not all of us are the heroes that we read in books. We're not all Hercules, super strong and absolutely fearless, and ready to take on any challenge. When I watch movies and the main character just walks headfirst into the dark, scary woods at night, I'm like, ‘I would never do that, that's so scary.’
Yet all of us, me and all my friends, are also capable of doing incredibly kind and brave things, despite the fact that we're not always heroic or cool in every way. The biggest antiheroes of my life have really just been my own friends and the people around me, that even through periods of their life that you wouldn't necessarily associate with the average hero, periods where they've made big mistakes, where they've done things that were reckless or stupid, or embarrassing in some way, but they've still managed to just grow as people and become a better person every day.
I feel like those are really the antiheroes that I feel inspired by because they're the people around me. There are specific characters that I do mention in the book, which I won't give away too much. One of them, for example, in the book is this random woman that my sister and I met in the bathroom, who saw that my sister's top had a stain and decided to clean it. It was so random. Maybe she was drunk or something, but it didn't matter because in that moment she was absolutely a hero for doing that. It's in an unlikely setting and it's a strange thing. It's little things like that that make you feel like people aren't all bad.
Those strangers that do random acts of kindness for you, they may be completely imperfect and dysfunctional in their own life but they did something incredibly kind for you. I feel like to me, that fundamentally fits that idea of an antihero.
Noyz: In one post you shared online, you said "every year, I get closer to who I really am." What do you feel helps you tap into or find that truth of who you are?
Hana: I think the more I find myself feeling secure in my life, secure in my friendships, in myself, in the work that I do, the more secure that I feel in actually being the version of myself that I've always wanted to be. You know when you're a kid and you're making an avatar of yourself online, but it's doing that in my head. There was this life I pictured that I would be having. In my fantasy as a teenager, I was the cool girl in the music video, or I was brave enough to wear that really, really bright, funky outfit out in public.
Every year that I do feel more secure in aspects of my life, I feel like I can do that and I can fulfill that and be that person that I wanted to be. Whereas there were times in my life where I felt a lot more self-conscious, a lot more timid, a lot more self-doubting like ‘oh, I can't pull that off,’ or ‘I'm never going to be able to do that,’ or ‘I suck.’ Just that negative self talk, which I honestly still get from time to time. I just feel like you start to feel safer and warmer in your own skin, and I think that's what I was trying to convey with that.
Noyz: Do you feel that just comes with age and life experience?
Hana: Yes. I think in my case, it's age and life experience. I think what I would hope for others is that they feel so loved and appreciated all through their life that they're able to reach that feeling of really feeling good about themselves and not being afraid to be themselves from a younger age. It's hard, when you're in school and if you get bullied or if you're teased, or you're just made to not feel safe or not loved in some way, it takes you so much longer to get to who you really are because you're so focused on self preservation that you're hiding a lot of you, or pretending to be someone else so that others will treat you better. For me, yes, it's been age and life experience, and having built up a good group of friends who make me feel really, really loved and really celebrated, and then I feel braver to be weird because they make me feel brave.
Noyz: If you could fill in the blank, creativity helps me--?
Hana: Dream.
Noyz: What is your why?
Hana: I think creating just feels like an instinct to me at this point. I feel like it's the same for me as breathing or drinking water. Why? Because it's just something I have to do and I can't imagine suppressing that.
Noyz: How do you define happiness?
Hana: I define happiness as when you feel light and you feel uplifted, and there's this bursting feeling of gratitude that is coming out of you because you're just so content with what's around you, with what you have, with who you are. I think that's what happiness is to me.
Noyz: How do you define power?
Hana: I think I define power by just the effect and the change that we have in our own lives and the lives of people around us.
Noyz: What are you listening to right now?
Hana: I have a really chaotic and also atrocious taste in music. I love a lot of music from the '60s and '70s but I'm also weirdly stuck in 2002 and just constantly listening to late '90s, early 2000s music. If I'm looking at my Spotify on repeat right now and I could give you a couple of artists that are on here so it makes sense, there's Busta Rhymes and Linkin Park, and Slipknot, and Ciara, and Nelly Furtado, and Sean Paul, it's totally chaotic.
Noyz: That's awesome. I'm down with it. My Spotify is all over the place too, it'll be like Billy Talent and Wu-Tang and Florence + The Machine, and just a random mix of stuff. I feel like having something like Much Music back in the day, how they would show rock music and hip hop and pop all in the same block of programming, that really helps diversify what you're consuming and listening to.
Hana: 100%. I love that. I like that I can listen to all different kinds of music. I literally just the other day bought a Bluegrass record because I also like folk music and country. I also listen to a lot of Bollywood. It is nice. think it's really cool that we had that experience, that millennial experience of watching Much Music.
